


The Stiles Files: What Scott Knows

by Cinder7storm4



Series: How can I trust you? [23]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Good Parent Melissa McCall, Scott McCall & Stiles Stilinski Friendship, Scott is a Good Friend, Secret reveals, Secrets, Sheriff Stilinski Knows, Sheriff Stilinski is a Good Parent, Sheriff Stilinski's Name is John, Stiles Has Issues, Stiles Has Nightmares, Stiles Has Panic Attacks, Stiles is unconscious, Stilinski Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-29
Updated: 2018-07-29
Packaged: 2019-06-17 23:26:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15472461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cinder7storm4/pseuds/Cinder7storm4
Summary: Scott and the Sheriff exchange notes from their Stiles files. Scott speaks first.





	The Stiles Files: What Scott Knows

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Teen Wolf.

The second Stiles went slack, John pulled him close, and brought him to the living room couch. He then stepped back, hovering as Melissa checked over his son’s vital signs and Scott paced behind the couch, alternating between glaring at John and looking concernedly at Stiles’ limp form. 

“The panic made him pass out; his vital signs are all normal,” Melissa said breaking the tense silence in the room.

Both John and Scott let out sighs of relief, but neither of them took comfort in their shared relief. All John could think of were Stiles’ final words, his apologies, his fear, and his confession. He could feel the anger at himself lap at the edges of his mind. Scott’s nose flared, “You weren’t angry at him this morning, you were angry at yourself,” the teen wolf stated, catching and holding John’s gaze. The Sheriff nodded jerkily. “Well, he didn’t know that!” spat out Scott, “He was damn well terrified.”

Scott took in a few deep breaths, controlling his wolf, halting his pacing so that he could perch on the arm of the couch and place one hand on Stiles’ chest, the steady beating anchoring him. “But he was nowhere near as terrified as he was a few minutes ago” Scott ground out each word as if they were causing him physical pain to speak, “when he thought you were going to be taken away from him.” He fixed John with his glowing eyes, “I don’t know what you can do to make this up to him, but you’ll do it. And you won’t give him any reason to think that you’ll abandon him, ever again.” The last two words were accompanied by a threatening growl. 

John met Scott’s eyes squarely, something his wolf respected begrudgingly, and nodded. The Sheriff’s right hand went to grip the back of his own neck, a nervous tick Stiles had picked up from him, and sank, shakily to the ground next to his son. “I didn’t know, I swear…” Scott knew he was telling the truth and after nodding at his mom to verify John’s statement, Melissa knelt down next to her friend, reaching out to grip his free hand “We know.”

“God, if I had known, I would have told you, I would have turned myself in” John rambled.

“Why didn’t he tell anyone?” Scott inquired, “After his mom,” John choked out a sob but the teen continued, not sparing time for John’s feelings at the moment “he had to know he could tell people?” His words hung as a question. 

John was the one to answer, “Over the weekend, he basically told me he thought he deserved what,” he swallowed thickly, “what Claudia did to him. He felt, still feels, responsible for her death apparently. I told him, I told him he never deserves to be hurt, ever and he just looked at me and told me he loved me. He thanked me. Goddammit!” John reared back from the floor, moving away from Melissa and Scott, his hands were shaking. 

“What else did you learn?” Melissa asked John.

He turned back to her confused by the question. “He’s not going to be forthcoming with anything, John. The more we know, the better we can protect him going forward.”

“Isn’t that compromising his privacy though, mom?” Scott commented, “I’m not saying no, I just... he’s going to be pissed.”

“Well, he came just damn well deal with being looked after for once,” replied the Sheriff gruffly.

“Yeah, that’s definitely not something he’s used to,” interjected Scott, allowing a slight growl to slip in alongside the words.

“Scott…” Melissa started to reprimand her son, but John put up a hand, “You’re right, kid.”

“Why don’t we start with what we know, go over things for triggers etc.?” Melissa asked the others. 

“Give me moment,” John whispered and he slipped down into his office, appearing not thirty seconds later with a file folder. 

Against his wishes, Scott felt his lips twitch up in the ghost of a smile “A Stiles file?” 

John mirrored Scott’s ghost smile, nodding. 

“I’ve got a mental one,” Scott stated, “It’s probably shorter.”

“Why don’t we start with that then?” John asked, flipping into his Sheriff persona, coming back toward Scott and Melissa, lowering himself onto the end of the couch where his son lay. 

Scott closed his eyes, bringing forward everything from his mental file, and he decided to start with the stuff he’d learned most recently “He learned to cook after his mom died. He did it out of necessity, because I think he was worried that mom would get suspicious.” Melissa drew in a sharp breath, remembering when she’d started seeing real food, simple food, but still real food all the same, start to reappear in the Stilinski fridge and cupboards after Claudia’s passing. 

“Where did he get the money?” Melissa asked, and John shrugged, making a note on an empty legal pad he’d taken from the folder. 

“He’s the one who makes my awesome birthday cakes, mom. The ones I dragged you around town looking for,” Scott added that because he thought it might be better to talk about the good things and the bad things together. 

“Of course,” breathed Melissa, smiling fondly at Stiles. 

“I’m assuming that’s how he knew how to do everything else before I did,” commented Scott, “Laundry and cleaning.” John was quiet as Scott spoke, but he could feel the man’s grief, thick, heavy like a blanket except it was almost suffocating, not comforting. 

“He said it taught him discipline. How to look after himself. He’s proud of it,” Scott continued. He paused for a moment, thinking back to lacrosse that day, “Boyd said he had scratches on his arms today.” Melissa went up on her knees to look, inspecting the healing cuts. 

“They’re recent,” she murmured.

“They’re not self-inflicted, at least not in the normal way,” John spoke then, “When I came home on Friday, Stiles was clutching a picture frame. He held it so tightly it broke.”

“You cleaned and bandaged them?” Melissa asked. He nodded. “You did a good job.”

“He’s been looking after them since then,” John dismissed the credit, turning his attention back to Scott, “He told me that he doesn’t,” the Sheriff seemed to struggle for words, “harm himself that way. It’s smaller stuff, fingernails in his palms, tugging on his hair. That’s why he’s keeping it short.” 

Scott whined a bit at hearing that his friend was hurting himself, surprisingly, John reached out a hand to cover the one Scott had on Stiles’ chest. Somehow, despite his anger at the man the contact quieted Scott’s wolf. He still loved John, the man was like his second father, Scott realized and he wasn’t sure how he felt about that at the moment. The Sheriff removed his hand after a moment, settling it instead on Stiles’ ankle. Absently, he began to undo his son’s shoes, gently taking them off of his feet to make his prone figure more comfortable. Melissa and Scott could both see both the hesitancy and the tenderness in John’s actions, it made them both settle a bit.

“What else, Scott?”

“His fingers, he was flicking off his fingers, he earlier and he did it yesterday, in the jeep.”

“What for?” Melissa inquired, confused.

“To see whether he was in a dream or not,” replied John, “Claudia used to do it too, in the early stages of the disease.”

“He sees six fingers if he’s in a dream,” Scott told the Sheriff, who nodded and made another note on his legal pad, “He’s also having nightmares. I don’t know what they’re about though. And he doesn’t believe it when people say they believe him. The word ‘believe’ actually triggers him.”

John nodded, “I noticed that when Derek was here on Saturday.” 

“I think that’s what I’ve got so far, well, except for the fact that he was so willing to forgive me for everything as if what I’d done, how I’d hurt him didn’t matter,” Scott stated, “I don’t know when he started thinking he didn’t matter.”

“What about you, John? What do you know?” Melissa asked, aiming to keep her tone professional but she knew it came out like a plea. She needed to know and understand, because the boy in front of her needed them and they needed him to keep their worlds on their axis’.


End file.
